This invention relates to signaling between electrical circuit cards which are independently powered. The term electrical circuit cards"" is meant electrical and electronic circuits mounted on rigid or semi-rid carriers so that they may be stacked or otherwise removably disposed in a suitable chassis. Such cards may be used for building or extending electrical or signal processing systems.
The present invention is particularly intended for use in circuit or network cards in communication systems, but is not necessarily limited thereto, the nature of the operating circuits oil the cards, the physical configuration of the cards and the nature and method of the connections being generally unimportant for the realization of the present invention.
An important facility which cards of this nature should have is a means enabling, one card to determine whether the power supply of another card is properly active. Various sophisticated recognition systems are known for example from EP-0552873-A1, EP-0351961-A2 and IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin Vol. 29, No. 3, August 1986, pages 1060-1062.
The present invention concerns a simple, reliable and low cost means of enabling one card to monitor the status of the voltage supply of another card.
The present invention is based on the provision of a bipolar transistor which is coupled directly or indirectly to the internal voltage supply rail of a first card and to a common earth connection such that its emitter/base junction is forward biased when the first voltage rail is properly powered. The collector of this transistor is connected to an external terminal which is adapted to connection to a terminal on a second card, wherein the respective internal voltage supply rail is connected by way of a pull-up resistor to the respective connector, whereby a voltage level which is either close to that of the common earth connection or close to that of the internal voltage supply rail of the second card indicates whether the voltage supply of the first card is properly active. The biasing of the transistor in the first card may be by way of a circuit directly connected between the first voltage supply rail and the common earth connection. Alternatively, the voltage at this rail may be monitored so as to control a switching stage which itself forward or reverse biases the base emitter junction of the transistor according, to its switching state. More particularly, the switching stage may be enabled by software control, preferably by way of a microprocessor, and in accordance with the voltage level at the first voltage rail to alter the bias voltage for the base emitter junction of the said transistor.